Responding to what it considers the University of Montana’s defective handling of complaints about sexual assaults, OCR, in conjunction with the Justice Department, sent the university a letter intended as a “blueprint” for institutions nationwide when handling sexual harassment, too. The letter, sent on May 9, encourages (see below) adoption of speech codes — actually, censorship regimes — to punish students who:

Make “sexual or dirty jokes” that are “unwelcome.” Or disseminate “sexual rumors” (even if true) that are “unwelcome.” Or make “unwelcome” sexual invitations. Or engage in the “unwelcome” circulation or showing of “e-mails or Web sites of a sexual nature.” Or display or distribute “sexually explicit drawings, pictures, or written materials” that are “unwelcome.”

It takes some work to simultaneously violate this many Constitutional protections in one letter, but the Obama Administration continues to demonstrate its heroic determination to ignore that aging document.

By the way, I cannot find any story about a single university President in the whole country who has objected to these rules. What a bunch a spineless conformists we running universities.

A few things I would add to Will's comments:

I have written about this emerging "right not to be offended" on University campuses for some time. This is the Obama Administration trying to codify this nutty BS "right" into law.

There is no way in a rule of law where one can have a law where only the opinion of the victim matters in determining culpability. To some extent, the loss of due process rights are almost secondary here -- if it is a crime if the victim says it is (ie they were offended), then what defense can one have, anyway?

Given that everyone takes offense to something nearly every day, this law would quickly cause everyone to be kicked out of school. The Venn diagram of speech that is offensive either to, say, fundamentalist Christians or Muslims and to radical feminists would encompass essentially all of speech related to sex. Since everyone will not be kicked out of school, the rules will almost certainly be enforced disparately, likely punishing speech with which the university administration disagrees but being far less aggressive in pursuing "unwanted" sexual speech with which it might disagree.

Living in Phoenix I know a number of people who work for Apollo (University of Phoenix). They have obviously been appalled by the Obama war on for-profit colleges and the egregiously-flawed report that came out last year. Several have told me they have complained for a while that certain hedge funds were pushing this initiative in order to make money off of short positions on their stock. I thought this was a bit paranoid, but now the accusation is coming from third parties, even those on the Left:

A proposed regulation from the Education Department threatens to devastate for-profit career or trade schools, but one thing is even more controversial than the regulation -- how it was crafted.

Education Department officials were encouraged and advised about the content of the regulation by a man who stood to make millions if it were issued.

"Wall Street investors were manipulating the regulatory process and Department of Education officials were letting them," charged Melanie Sloan of a liberal-leaning ethics watchdog called Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington....

Among others, Sloan is referring to Steven Eisman, a hedge fund manager and a figure in the book "The Big Short," who testified in the Senate against for-profit career or trade schools, attacking them as "fundamentally unsound."

At the same time, he was betting that the stocks of those companies would fall, a practice known as short selling. "Making sure that they were going to be defamed and that their value was going to be depressed," said Harry Alford, head of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, who worries about the schools because they serve many minority students.

Simultaneously, through emails and conference calls, Eisman was advising Education Department officials -- and one White House adviser -- in detail on how best to write the new regulation, which he estimated would reduce the schools' earnings by as much as 75 percent.

The proposed regulation from the administration is aimed at what are known as career or vocational schools. The rule would cut federal aid to programs where student debt levels are deemed to be too high and where students are struggling to repay their loans.

In other news, everyone seems A-OK with kids in not-for-profit universities running up $200,000 debts to get such lucrative, workplace-ready degrees as women's studies, comp. lit. and poetry.

In ... Gulino v. New York State Education Department (2d Cir. Aug. 17, 2006),
the Second Circuit reinstated a race discrimination suit against the
New York State Education Department based on the theory that a test of
"basic college-level content" that asks applicants to get just
two-thirds of the questions right is racially discriminatory because it
has a "disparate impact" on African-American and Latino teachers. The
test, developed in response to a 1988 task force report on problems with teacher quality, is described at pages 11-13 of the opinion.

There is nothing surprising, really, about this. This theory, that a test that shows African-Americans performing more poorly than whites is by definition racist, has been floating around by decades. It is particularly popular with various African-American leadership groups.

I have no problem with various ethnic and racial groups bringing expertise to bear to weed out poorly worded questions on exams. But making this their only reaction to the test - ie the test shows we as a group may have a problem so lets throw the test out - is insane. By way of explanation, here is a little play to consider:

Doctor: I am sorry to tell you that you have cancer. If untreated, it can be fatal. The good news is that it is treatable, but the treatment will take time and can be quite difficult and painful.

Patient: Your test is bad. If other people don't have cancer, then I don't either. I am going to ignore the result and ask the government to make sure that no one else is allowed to take the test either.

Doctor: But that's crazy! The cancer is treatable, but only if we get to work on it right now.

Patient: You will be hearing from my lawyer for the pain and suffering your bad test has caused me.

I fully believe that the average African American wants her kids to be well educated, and has deep concerns about the quality of the education her kids are getting. So I will limit my comments to African American "leadership". Is what these leadership groups are doing in trying to legally strike down tests that show that the education they are getting as a group is failing really any different than a patient ignoring a positive cancer test?

Postscript: In the article I linked, I do not share the author's concern about political T-shirts at school.